The roads are part of the game's vaguely souls-like multiplayer, where you never actually see other players but you encounter some of the structures they've built to make travelling through the world easier. You can contribute resources to build their structures and they can contribute to your structures. The roads deliberately require an unreasonable number of resources for any one person because you contribute to them alongside other players to build them which reinforces the games dual themes of social isolation and the need for community and cooperation.
Death Stranding has fast travel. But you can also grind for roads and then truck around like this is a big wheeler sim
The roads are part of the game's vaguely souls-like multiplayer, where you never actually see other players but you encounter some of the structures they've built to make travelling through the world easier. You can contribute resources to build their structures and they can contribute to your structures. The roads deliberately require an unreasonable number of resources for any one person because you contribute to them alongside other players to build them which reinforces the games dual themes of social isolation and the need for community and cooperation.